Jpl where is curiosity

We had just completed a drill at a site we named Glasgow. Because of the lockdown an even greater proportion of rover operations was being done by staff working from home. But after eight Earth years, more than three Martian years and 29 drill holes - all is still working pretty well. The HiRISE image covers a region called Greenheugh pediment, part of the lower slopes of Mount Sharp which we will be slowly driving up over the next three years of an extended mission.

It's in this next part of the mission that we expect to find a different sort of ancient environment to the earlier parts of the mission, with lots of sulphate minerals.

With no rain in the current climate, dust accumulates on the surface of Mars. Winds energized by the Sun's heating of the ground can form large and well-formed whirlwinds known as vortices.

They mostly are invisible, but when a strong vortex drifts over a dusty surface, dust is lifted into it and reveals its shape. This animation was shot over four minutes on Sol and captured a "dust devil" vortex at a distance of one-half to one km from the rover.

The dust devil is about 5m wide and at least 50m tall. Curiosity took its latest "selfie" on Sol to celebrate the successful drilling of three holes on the rock slab in front of it. The first two holes were named after Mary Anning, the 19th Century palaeontologist whose findings in the seaside cliffs of southwest England contributed to the understanding of prehistoric marine life on Earth. Material from these holes was used for two "wet chemistry" experiments, in which it was mixed with liquid chemicals to extract organic molecules that may be preserved in the rock.

Rocks at this site formed from sediment carried in ancient streams and lakes. DAN will run in passive mode for nearly 8 hours before, during, and after the drive while adding an active measurement after the drive is complete.

The bedrock and surrounding sand ripples were littered with gray rock fragments, shed from the "Greenheugh Pediment" looming east of us. To keep building our systematic picture of the bedrock as we climb Mount Sharp, we used all our remote and contact science instruments on the bedrock target "Isle of Mists. Finally, Mastcam will acquire a multispectral observation of the cleared bedrock, and a stereo mosaic covering the workspace.

While the bedrock was the focus of our attention, the veins were not to be ignored. The environment will also get plenty of attention throughout the plan, with multiple measurements at different times of day to monitor changes across the sols. At midday, Mastcam and Navcam will measure the dust load in the atmosphere, and Navcam will look for clouds, cloud shadows, and dust devils. The Navcam dust load cloud movie observations will also occur in the early morning of Sol It is hard to believe it is it that time already!

The fact that it does not feel like it took us long to climb to our next drill target is a sign we are really mountain climbing, and reading the mountain as we go! Today is another busy day on Mars, with both arm and driving activities. I did Rover Planning today; my job was to combine and review the arm and drive sequences.

First up in the morning is our pre-drive contact science. Unlike the really tiny veins that we normally see, this is one is so large enough that we should be able to target it well and accurately. Hopefully, the RPs will Rhue today, and not rue the day we missed the target. After the arm activities, we have a series of targeted science observations.

We are also taking multispectral mosaics of some nearby features, including a regolith fracture, a laminated rock, and additional bedrock targets both with and without veins. We are also taking a Navcam suprahorizon movie, looking off to the south. This drive should leave us with bedrock in the workspace for additional contact science on the weekend. This terrain continues to be very challenging, with large boulders, sharp rocks that are wheel hazards, and sand ripples, like the terrain shown in the image.

These drives take a while to plan to make sure we are avoiding all the hazards while getting to where science wants to go. The attached image is from our post-drive imaging on sol We took the imaging in the late afternoon, providing these dramatic and beautiful shadows.

Select sites to explore by clicking the pin icon. View a list of the major, named areas in Gale crater that Curiosity has visited. Click on the name to go directly to that location. The camera icon allows you to take a screenshot of a location and automatically download it from the site. The boxes around several key locations on the map highlight several key spots. Click a box and see the location name appear in the top panel. This was used when Curiosity found evidence of a streambed , for example.

In September , Curiosity arrived at its science destination, Mount Sharp Aeolis Mons shortly after a NASA science review said the rover should do less driving and more searching for habitable destinations. It is now carefully evaluating the layers on the slope as it moves uphill. The goal is to see how the climate of Mars changed from a wet past to the drier, acidic conditions of today.

Curiosity's prime mission is to determine if Mars is, or was, suitable for life. While it is not designed to find life itself, the rover carries a number of instruments on board that can bring back information about the surrounding environment. Scientists hit something close to the jackpot in early , when the rover beamed back information showing that Mars had habitable conditions in the past. Powder from the first drill samples that Curiosity obtained included the elements of sulfur, nitrogen, hydrogen, oxygen, phosphorus and carbon, which are all considered "building blocks" or fundamental elements that could support life.

While this is not evidence of life itself, the find was still exciting to the scientists involved in the mission. Scientists also detected a huge spike in methane levels on Mars in late and early , at a level of about 7 parts per billion compared to the usual 0. This was a notable finding because in some circumstances, methane is an indicator of microbial life. But it can also point to geological processes. In , however, the team determined the methane spike was not a seasonal event.

There are smaller background changes in methane, however, that could be linked to the seasons. Curiosity also made the first definitive identification of organics on Mars, as announced in December Organics are considered life's building blocks, but do not necessarily point to the existence of life as they can also be created through chemical reactions. Initial results released at the Lunar and Planetary Science conference in showed scientists found complex organic molecules in Martian samples stored inside the Curiosity rover, but using an unexpected method.

In , results based on Curiosity's work added more evidence that life was possible on Mars. One study described the discovery of more organic molecules in 3.

The seasonal changes could mean that the gas is produced from living organisms, but there's no definitive proof of that yet. Besides hunting for habitability, Curiosity has other instruments on board that are designed to learn more about the environment surrounding it.

Among those goals is to have a continuous record of weather and radiation observations to determine how suitable the site would be for an eventual human mission. Curiosity's Radiation Assessment Detector runs for 15 minutes every hour to measure a swath of radiation on the ground and in the atmosphere.

Scientists in particular are interested in measuring "secondary rays" or radiation that can generate lower-energy particles after it hits the gas molecules in the atmosphere.

Gamma-rays or neutrons generated by this process can cause a risk to humans. Additionally, an ultraviolet sensor stuck on Curiosity's deck tracks radiation continuously.